This week members of BGS pointed me to a fascinating read at Geo-HeritageScience — a blog from London resident, Jane Robb. With Bachelor and Master’s degrees in geology and years of work in the geoscience field (she current works as a Communications Officer at Geology for Global Development), she definitely has a thing for rocks.

But she also enjoys spending free time playing videogames. During her adventures playing Skyrim, her passions collided, and she began to hypothesize about the location of specific rock deposits across the game’s regions. Here’s an excerpt from her post:

Here are the eight different kinds of rocks found in Skyrim. Not all of them are actually real however so the ones I will be discussing today are iron ore, gold ore, moonstone ore and malachite ore. Some notes: malachite is actually an ore in itself (of copper) and you do not get an ore of malachite; moonstone is a mineral and corundum is real (a mineral) but is found in Blackreach which is underground and cannot be shown on the Skyrim map.

“Here are the eight different kinds of rocks found in Skyrim. Not all of them are actually real however so the ones I will be discussing today are iron ore, gold ore, moonstone ore and malachite ore. Some notes: malachite is actually an ore in itself (of copper) and you do not get an ore of malachite; moonstone is a mineral and corundum is real (a mineral) but is found in Blackreach which is underground and cannot be shown on the Skyrim map”

Be sure to read the whole article at her blog, and then come back and check our our interview below. Modders should take particular notice!

How did you come to play Skyrim? Does your geology background factor into the games you choose to play?

I was initially introduced to the gaming world by my boyfriend several years ago as before I had never touched a console. I was instantly hooked. I mainly loved watching him play but then along came Oblivion. My boyfriend recommended it to me as he knew I loved fantasy (I read lots of fantasy novels and watch films) and I fell in love with the game. Needless to say I was then totally excited for Skyrim to come out, and completed the game and the first DLC in half the time it took him to play!

Just as Dishonored presents a variety of gameplay options, we’re seeing an eclectic mix of community creations. Spotted at deviantART, juhoham’s Shadow Over Dunwall tribute to Corvo (above) and Ormeli’s spot on cosplay of Empress Jessamine have become favorites at the office.

Good luck to Robert Brandl, who will be attempting a world record speedrun for DOOM 3 BFG Edition’s The Lost Mission. Robert previously captured a Guinness World Record for his speedrun time in Resident Evil 4.

Received a note this week that the Rice University Department of English is offering a one-time course titled, “Scandanavian Fantasy World: Old Norse Sagas and Skyrim.” Check out the course description below:

This course has two goals. First, it introduces students to fantasy as both psychological concept and driving force in gamer culture; and second, using these paradigms, it considers how and why medieval Scandinavia serves as a locus of modern Anglo-American fantasy. To these ends, students will read selections from Old Norse and Old Icelandic sagas (in translation) as they play different quests within Skyrim. While the course begins by identifying moments of intersection between the worlds of the sagas and of Skyrim (inclement environments, supernatural figures, mythologies), the course is not in any means meant to map the former onto the latter. The purpose of establishing these connections is to then consider how elements of medieval Scandinavian culture have been taken out of historical milieu and literary context, morphed into unfamiliar shape, and appropriated towards other fantastic pursuits. We’ll consider the political saga of Skyrim, with its emphasis on Empire and rebellion, as pursuits made possible by way of Scandinavia in order to think through what Scandinavian fantasy worlds are really about and why they resonate with contemporary Anglo-American culture.

Note: This course is only for enrolled students at Rice. Fast travelling to Houston to see if you can participate is not an option.